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[Completed][Completed] [Debate/Poll]: Holy vs. Dark Conflict


BonesOfTheEarth
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Holy vs. Dark  

73 members have voted

  1. 1. How should Holy vs. Dark conflict be handled?

    • Holy people should be allowed to write within their lore what they're required to fight for/against.
      22
    • Holy and Dark groups should compromise whenever a holy lore is being made, and discuss how their given creeds/tenants/whatever would apply to the dark.
      36
    • The LT are right and holy people should not at all treat dark people differently than your average innocent man.
      11
    • Other(Detail below).
      4


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I am genuinely curious on what the collective agreement is on “Light vs. Dark” conflict. The LT have taken the stance that Holy users should not specifically label dark magics/creatures such as shades and naztheraks their enemies. I don’t understand why. As I see it, the point of being HOLY is being good, and the point of being DARK is being bad. Good guys attack bad guys, bad guys attack good guys.

 

I’ll say, I’m all for the magics themselves not dealing explicitly “More” damage to a fair number of dark entities, as it creates a “Good always beats bad” scenario rather than a dynamic where the bad can win. But that change has already been made. Why should playerbases be forced to tolerate the existence of such entities, on punishment of disconnection from their gods should they deny that? When you make a dark magic MA, you are agreeing to be dark. It’s a relative given that people will hunt you for that. Granted, this kind of conflict should follow the rest of the server rules and not be toxic or volatile, but that’s an issue that shouldn’t be dealt with by placing ridiculous restrictions on holy mages. Given if any hurt an innocent they risk disconnection, forcing us to view dark entities as “innocent” forces us to ignore them, and that ends with large amounts of people complaining that we dont do our job.

 

I don’t really know the dark-mage side of this as well, but the few I’ve spoken to with the exception of two have all agreed that this kind of rule is lame. I’d argue that, in the “good faith” clause the server is going, this should be entirely up to two player-bases interacting. When writing lore, discuss with your opposition. State your stances, then compromise. If one can’t be met, either drop it or have the LT involve themselves.

 

Anyways, I could write pages on my thoughts. But one person’s thoughts don’t matter. What matters is statistics. Take your votes! We got a poll!

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I believe the issues which led to this policy from the ST was the inability for players to deal with the holy/dark dynamic only in RP. That it seeped with toxicity and holy players would metagame or even oocly harass dark users or creatures, in order to ‘get them’ and vice versa.

 

Anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

 

If players can keep the conflict purely iRP and create an interesting narrative together, then that’s good. There’s room for nuance in a dark/light dynamic too.

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Yeah, essentially I enjoy the dynamic but I’d rather it be an RP dynamic instead of enforced through lore. By that I mean completely having the ability to counter-act the other persons magic and therefore essentially invalidate most of their abilities during conflict. Most of the issues lie with the inability of the dark/light dynamics to actually take consequence and then the general ‘arms race’ attributed with the dark/light dynamic. If the dynamic is enforced through lore, there is a race to essentially amp up your magic to be able to beat the other in every situation possible.

 

Just keep the **** RP, make it so it isnt counterproductive to actual RP and maybe just RP conflict properly. As I’m rewriting the Cleric thing I’m trying to deviate hard from the objective ‘Dark/Light’ counters, for the sake that it really isnt productive to roleplay and the playerbase cannot be trusted with direct counters to the other playerbase.

 

Though I also ******* hate good/evil swapping like with clerics turning into necros or necros turning into clerics.

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8 minutes ago, Aethling said:

I believe the issues which led to this policy from the ST was the inability for players to deal with the holy/dark dynamic only in RP. That it seeped with toxicity and holy players would metagame or even oocly harass dark users or creatures, in order to ‘get them’ and vice versa.

 

Anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

 

If players can keep the conflict purely iRP and create an interesting narrative together, then that’s good. There’s room for nuance in a dark/light dynamic too.

 

3 minutes ago, ScreamingDingo said:

Yeah, essentially I enjoy the dynamic but I’d rather it be an RP dynamic instead of enforced through lore. By that I mean completely having the ability to counter-act the other persons magic and therefore essentially invalidate most of their abilities during conflict. Most of the issues lie with the inability of the dark/light dynamics to actually take consequence and then the general ‘arms race’ attributed with the dark/light dynamic. If the dynamic is enforced through lore, there is a race to essentially amp up your magic to be able to beat the other in every situation possible.

 

Just keep the **** RP, make it so it isnt counterproductive to actual RP and maybe just RP conflict properly. As I’m rewriting the Cleric thing I’m trying to deviate hard from the objective ‘Dark/Light’ counters, for the sake that it really isnt productive to roleplay and the playerbase cannot be trusted with direct counters to the other playerbase.

 

Though I also ******* hate good/evil swapping like with clerics turning into necros or necros turning into clerics.

yeah. what these two are saying. 

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i find it a difficult argument. Because often enough not every dark magic user is bad, and their instrument isn’t exactly bad either.

Bloodmages as a whole tend to be horribly neutral, only advancing their interests violently if need be – but otherwise are a completely quiet and unharmful group. The same goes for mystics, who won’t really go out of their way to hurt people- rather, advance themselves through a fairly dark art. The latter could potentially be objectively evil depending on who you ask but they aren’t inherently bad, which is where the argument stems from I believe. Not every darkmage should be an antag, not every holy mage should be a protag- and of course I don’t violently mean a servers protag, I just mean that there should be a grey area, and there can be certainly conflict between two groups – but there should not be a defining line of “Holy mages exist to purge evil”. That should exist through one’s own RP beliefs and focuses. It also forges a lot of animosity and metagaming- dare I say something that one side may be incredibly familiar with compared to another, but I am not here to jab or take jabs. I think that there are a lot of interesting ideas but rivalries should exist in rp. not something by lore. Kind of like the shade – paladin mutual disconnection thing, I think that is interesting. Rather than one side being more predatory and inherently more threatening than another, there is a mutual power dynamic where it depends contextually, which I think is far more important.

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@Aethling

My thoughts on that are simple. If someone is being toxic, that is not the fault of the lore. It’s the fault of the player. Server rules exist to stop instances like this. If I’m metagaming/doxxing/harassing dark mages OOCly as a Paladin, Paladin lore doesn’t deserve to get scolded for that. It’s out of character. It’s me. The correct course of action is to ban me.

 

@ScreamingDingo

I agree 100%. I like to think that this in particular doesn’t apply to the Paladins, though I’m a terrible self-judge. I wrote it without reading through our rival lores, but at the same time speaking to their lore-writers to discover how our interactions would be made. I believe @TheAlphaMoist and  @Luv can attest for that. I’ve found a good enough system just to be, as mentioned in the post, to work with your enemies in the creation of the lore. I specifically mark this as the task of the “Holy” group, as they’re the ones who would be the aggressors. It is a slight annoyance to me however, that more often than not, “Dark” magics will write in holy as a weakness without specifically dictating which groups, or why or how. Even if it makes sense – like previous azdrazi writing that paladinism hurt them more than it did others, or shades writing in that contact with holy magic burned at their spells – it is still a laborious process on our end to do the research on that.

 

@SquakHawk

Boy oh boy. This one gets a bit into my own personal feelings on the matter. Imo, if something is not inherently dark, then do not label it “[Dark]” when writing the lore. Blood magic has always been a more neutral magic, I agree. But things like shades, where at any point you can have a take-over and lose control? Even if your character picks flowers and builds huts for the homeless and hates violence, that is still a danger. That’s how I determine dark; Is it dangerous, or does it require death to progress? Mystics count as this; Most of their creations required killing, and wights required 5-15 depending on if they were PK’s or not. Frost witches as well, requiring to feast on male flesh to exist. I feel this is a fair judge to determine dark or not. Don’t just label it dark because it has a theme of low hoods and black cloaks(Blood magic).

 

Continuing with you, Squak. “Evil.” Yes. Holy mages should definitely exist with the purpose of destroying evil. Evil, however, should be defined. This is a case-by-case scenario, tying into my in-post comment on working with opposition. And to tie up your last point, I 100% agree as well that it should not be a predator-hunter scenario. I’ve made active efforts already to make interactions and conflicts with shades, paladins, and fw’s during their return relatively enjoyable on all ends.

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11 minutes ago, Fury_Fire said:

My thoughts on that are simple. If someone is being toxic, that is not the fault of the lore. It’s the fault of the player. Server rules exist to stop instances like this. If I’m metagaming/doxxing/harassing dark mages OOCly as a Paladin, Paladin lore doesn’t deserve to get scolded for that. It’s out of character. It’s me. The correct course of action is to ban me.

Agreed.

Players who abuse their magic, whether powergaming or blackmail, or ooc harassment, should be punished and blacklisted. The magic and the rest of its userbase are not to blame.

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holy magic shouldn’t directly counter dark magic and vice versa. they should learn to overcome each other through weaknesses they’ve written in their own lore

 

nobody wants this stupid tug of war, it makes no sense that you should have to write your lore to appease a group of players that isn’t part of your own. 

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I am honestly astounded that so many people are picking that holy mages should have 100% free reign. That’s a shock.

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I think this might end up in “this guy is bad, get him! dabdabfragfrag”. Which, of course, is poor rp and should be dealt with accordingly, but I don’t see how writing that this particular group must hunt another will really add anything beneficial. You’ve listed some examples of dark magic of requiring death to progress/exist. But isn’t that enough to act on, to take down these groups? If they harm the general populace, you have enough reason ic to deal with them. I don’t see why it needs to be written down in the lore.

 

On the belief of holy mages exist to destroy “evil”. Isn’t it a bit morally gray just to act on someone just on what potential danger they have? It’s not exactly “good” if I push someone with a timebomb attached themselves to save others, I’d say.

 

Also on the idea that people could say that you’re not doing your job. You can still target these people even though it may be wrong to be seen as busy. There’s consequences on if you decide to do so or not.

 

I’m a bit new so I may have misunderstood somethings. Correct me if I’m wrong on something.

 

EDIT:Accidentally sent before I could add some things.

Edited by Twodials
Forgot some things.
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everything that has been stated here in the comments I agree with for the most part

 

really doesn't require much thought, if you remember the axios days dark mages were shunned so much OOC (it was not only IC, those who state otherwise have an incredibly moot point) that they made Devirad, a culmination of all unholy edge

 

going back to these days with a whole 'we counter dark mages specifically' rather than specifically dealing with the problems that pass your sight / get in your way on a case by case basis as any normal non-toxic individual would do is something I do not exactly like to see suggested

 

you're supposed to be a holy warrior and a guardian of the innocent, not a warmongering hunter seeking the heads of the evil no matter what he has to do

 

where both sides choose to actively antagonise one another with roleplay that can be done well and achieved easily, there is no opportunity for a tug of war - there is only wholehearted communication between said two parties

 

creeds and tenants should be applied not only to the dark but to all things on a case by case basis

 

you have my discord if you want to talk about it @Fury_Fire

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27 minutes ago, Fury_Fire said:

I am honestly astounded that so many people are picking that holy mages should have 100% free reign. That’s a shock.

 

I didn’t vote but I believe “holy” mages shouldn’t exist.

 

They’re at such a thematic dissonance from the rest of the server (which does not have a central “good vs. evil” narrative) that they don’t actually make sense having magical light powers. No one would question player-driven good guy orders that actually work to fight evil from a character perspective, but it feels like holy mages are justified literally only by their magic powers.


To pull a lame analogy from Fallout, LoTC holy mages are trying to be the Brotherhood of Steel when they should be the Followers of the Apocalypse. Too much obsession over (magical/technological) weaponry, rituals, and just generally being a big, armored paladin that fucks people up. Almost no giving aid to the needy. This would be okay if LoTC had a simple narrative like FO3, where paladins could be the good guys, but LoTC is more like FONV, where the good guys are people generally trying to do good in the shitworld that is Arcas/the Wasteland.

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11 minutes ago, rotund_man said:

 

I didn’t vote but I believe “holy” mages shouldn’t exist.

 

They’re at such a thematic dissonance from the rest of the server (which does not have a central “good vs. evil” narrative) that they don’t actually make sense having magical light powers. No one would question player-driven good guy orders that actually work to fight evil from a character perspective, but it feels like holy mages are justified literally only by their magic powers.


To pull a lame analogy from Fallout, LoTC holy mages are trying to be the Brotherhood of Steel while they’re billed as the Followers of the Apocalypse. Too much obsession over magical weaponry, rituals, and big fights. Almost no defending of the downtrodden or providing aid to the needy.


very well spoken, i like this. Along with what Sam said – holy mages should not exist to counter dark mages. They should exist to be holy mages. 

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32 minutes ago, rotund_man said:

holy magic shouldn’t directly counter dark magic and vice versa. they should learn to overcome each other through weaknesses they’ve written in their own lore

 

nobody wants this stupid tug of war, it makes no sense that you should have to write your lore to appease a group of players that isn’t part of your own. 

That’s dumb. All lore should enrich the server’s narrative, and magic should offer something enjoyable to the people who don’t possess it in terms of a good RP experience. Writing your lore for a clique seems ******* sad frankly.

edit:

Quote

They’re at such a thematic dissonance from the rest of the server (which does not have a central “good vs. evil” narrative) that they don’t actually make sense having magical light powers. No one would question player-driven good guy orders that actually work to fight evil from a character perspective, but it feels like holy mages are justified literally only by their magic powers.


To pull a lame analogy from Fallout, LoTC holy mages are trying to be the Brotherhood of Steel when they should be the Followers of the Apocalypse. Too much obsession over (magical/technological) weaponry, rituals, and just generally being a big, armored paladin that fucks people up. Almost no giving aid to the needy. This would be okay if LoTC had a simple narrative like FO3, where paladins could be the good guys, but LoTC is more like FONV, where the good guys are people generally trying to do good in the shitworld that is Arcas/the Wasteland.

 

I agree with this, however.

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The Holy/Dark conflict in the past has had the problem of man-hunting and toxicity from both sides. This is how we ended up with Ascended/Clerics in the past going out to hunt spooks. It became less a need to uphold their duties and moreso ‘let’s beat up a bunch of bad guys, because that’s what good guys do’.

I see no issue with having zealous holy users or more neutral ‘Dark’ magic users as long as it suits the character. There’s too many cases of both running rampant: zealotry without clearly defining what is ‘Dark’ beyond an OOC attachment or mechanic; neutrality from Dark magics who still want the best of both worlds and don’t wish their personal life be affected by sacrificial rituals or unnatural creatures.

While the lore should be considerate of other Dark/Holy groups, it’s problematic for anyone to form their identity as a magic based off the identities of others first. If anything should be more strictly defined as to how to treat such beings, it should be the Aeungu-Daemons, not necessarily their followers.

Not every player however might accurately define for their characters what ‘good’ or ‘holy’ even is, however, and the server’s lore can get quite tricky. Clerics for example as many think of them come from Dungeons & Dragons, which has alignments attached to them – something which while the Lore Team could tie to various Aeungu-Daemons, cannot easily do so to characters. 

Sure your Holy-Man could purge away any spooks seen, but the average Descendant has to worry about banditry, assault, slavery and more – which are often worse crimes to some than a skeleton doing parlor tricks over in the town square.

 

9 minutes ago, rotund_man said:

 

I didn’t vote but I believe “holy” mages shouldn’t exist.

 

They’re at such a thematic dissonance from the rest of the server (which does not have a central “good vs. evil” narrative) that they don’t actually make sense having magical light powers. No one would question player-driven good guy orders that actually work to fight evil from a character perspective, but it feels like holy mages are justified literally only by their magic powers.


I suppose the best question for clerics and holy mages is, what makes them different than an average man with a dislike for undead and a sword that hurts undead extra-good? And what purposes could they fulfill beyond that basic encounter? (Granted, folks going around tapping everything with aurum/slayersteel poses the same problems as people using Clerics/Paladins/Ascended to meta-scan dark mages in the past – in which case just report those folks.)

Again, beyond the ‘good guys beat up bad guys, and because they’re good, they should win’ attitude I see sometimes.

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